Former Speaker Rebecca Kadaga
A section of legislators have proposed to Government to consider the proposal to purchase a helicopter for former Speaker Rebecca Kadaga to enable her traverse and deal with challenges that come with the increased size of the East African Community (EAC) following the admission of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) into the regional bloc.
The controversial proposal was fronted by Soy County MP, Fadhil Chemaswet while reacting to a statement by Kadaga, the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of East African Affairs on the admission of DRC into the EAC during today’s plenary sitting.
Chemaswet urged fellow lawmakers to consider and take seriously the proposal to procure a chopper for Kadaga, arguing that she needs it after the admission of DRC into EAC.
“I know that Kadaga has challenges in terms of movement while moving around EAC and I know you will have more challenges because we have admitted a big country (into EAC). My request is that the Minister should be having a helicopter not a vehicle and there is that request by the way because how do you handle these challenges when you are using a vehicle around instead of using a helicopter?” said Chemaswet.
However, Kadaga declined to comment about the issue and instead decried the stringent modalities Ugandans go through to access Kenya like the requirement to clear with border authorities every three months.
“Recently, I also learnt for the first time that when Ugandans are in Kenya they must drive to the border every three months to renew their entry with their cars. It is something we want to address, I didn’t know about it but there are people who came to me and told me so I am trying to handle that,” Kadaga said.
“And I had an interesting one with the border communities near Namayingo; the boda boda people were being stopped from crossing with their bodas so they said, but we see the cars crossing why don’t you allow boda bodas and said for them the boda bodas are their integration. So I told the EAC Secretary General to deal with it,” she added.
It should be recalled that in November 2021, Ministry of Finance tabled before Parliament a supplementary proposal to borrow Shs2.476Trn from local commercials banks, of which Shs26.144bn would go towards purchase of cars for former Speaker Kadaga and other Ministers.
According to the proposal, the Ministry of East African Community Affairs would spend Shs1.2Bn to procure three vehicles for Minister of State for East African Community Affairs, and her deputies.
Last month, DRC was admitted into the East African Community joining the league of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Sudan and Burundi with the aim of deepening and widening economic, political and social integration to improve quality of lives of people.
The Minister of East African Affairs informed Parliament that the admission of DRC a dominantly French speaking country will require use of French in the Community which resonates with the earlier decision in February 2022 that adopted English, French and Kiswahili as official languages.
“The non French speaking EAC Partner states must now put in place modalities of learning and using French as well as Kiswahili as these are now the center state of the official operations of the Community,” said Kadaga.
Joel Ssenyonyi (Nakawa West) welcomed the admission of DRC into DRC but said that there are things Ugandans needs to fix in order to optimize the integration.
He cited the decision taken in 2010, where EAC launched a common market for goods, labour and capital but there are still challenges for Uganda’s goods like sugar, eggs to make it to certain markets in EAC.
Ssenyonyi said, “For any country to properly benefit from an integration, we have got to have a bit to offer. we still have a challenge with production, in our country, the local manufacturers are struggling. Maybe time has come for us to start focusing on these local manufacturers so that we can have a lot to export to these countries. We tend to focus a bit on foreign investors and it is okay, we need them but sometimes we are focusing more on the neighbor’s child and forget ours. For us to be able to benefit, we must have what to export, so let us aid these local manufacturers.”
Lawmakers from the West Nile region including Jackson Atima (Arua Central) and Godfrey Onzima (Aringa North) welcomed the admission of DRC into the community and urged Ugandans to tap into the opportunities and called on Government to help with the insecurity in Eastern DRC to create conducive environment for Ugandans to carry out trade.
